The city of Calgary needs a new hockey arena!

This is a huge black mark on Canadian hockey, in a great Canadian hockey city.

The city of Calgary needs a new arena. The allure of a stadium shaped like a big cowboy sat on it and crushed it may have been popular in 1983 when it was opened, when the city was still trying to lure tourists to Calgary for the Stampede in the summer, but those days have passed.We all know what the Calgary Stampede is now. It's basically the Toronto CNE, only with a Corral and cowboys.

We as Canadian hockey fans cannot lose the Calgary Flames. A new arena would benefit not only hockey fans, who would be able to see more games because of the increased seating capacity, but also would be able to see more concerts!

Let me ask you a question, do you want to see Madonna, Taylor Swift, Justin Timberlake, Britney Spears, and/or Paul McCartney? How about AC/DC or Journey or Imagine Dragons? Well too bad, they won't play the Saddledome because of it's poor architectural design.

-The average cost of seeing a concert is about $80.-The average attendance for a concert is about 19000 people.-The average percentage a venue would profit from those ticket sales is about 1.5% (that is not including profiting from concessions IE snacks and alcohol)Just taking those eight musical acts I've mentioned into account, when you add it all up, a new arena would already rake in $182,400 in profit. That's also not including how much money the city of Calgary would make in tourism/accommodation ect.

As a comparison, the Air Canada Centre in Toronto, in 2016, held 58 non sporting events (mostly concerts) and taking the average from above that's $1,322,400 in venue profit.

Also without a new arena, you can forget about Calgary hosting an All Star game or the World Cup of Hockey anytime soon.

The city of Calgary needs to get on board. Mayor Naheed Nenshi needs to understand that a new hockey arena won't just benefit hockey fans, but all the fans of any kind of live entertainment all over Alberta. From Lake Louise/Banff/Canmore in the west, to Red Deer up north, to Lethbridge down south to Medicine Hat in the east, please give fans, Albertans and Canadians in general a REASON to come to Calgary.